


Needs

by raffinit



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3117974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raffinit/pseuds/raffinit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joel considers the things that the title 'partner' entails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a tumblr full of this shit and my AO3 is pathetically empty. 
> 
> ONTO THE ANGST!

They’re partners.

Logically he knows that. It’s just a fact.

Sometimes you might think that they’re…friends. Best friends. The best of friends you can have in a world like theirs, at least.

It’s a relative term. What matters is that he knows that he trusts her with his life, and in some ways he thinks that she trusts him with hers as well.

They’ve been together a long time.

Things can change. Things have happened between them. Maybe it’s the adrenaline; the frustration or the helplessness that they feel about each other but…things have happened between them under the guise of too much alcohol or too little food or blood loss or shock.

They never think about it, never talk about it. It becomes something they share in the same way they share weapons and food and alcohol.

It’s just another need they fulfill.

* * *

There’s a skip in her step as she goes.

It’s amusing and disconcerting to the man; Tess walks with purpose, strong and firm and never anything less than the badass that she is. To see her move so light and easy puts a feeling in his chest that Joel can’t think to discern in one word or two, or even a sentence - so he doesn’t.

He walks on along with her, just a step behind, smiling and grimacing at the ground in front of him; hidden beneath his beard.

The payoff is beautiful for them.

Deals come and go, business is business and sometimes they come out feeling cheated; other times they feel like kings among paupers. Neither of them will admit it willingly, and Joel is quite certain that Tess wouldn’t admit it even under torture, but times are hard for them right now.

People are greasier, business deals grittier, and rations at an all time low. It’s a shittier world to live in now with tempers riling high and hot; neither of them are spared of it.

They needed this payoff.

“Look at that,” Tess says, whistling low when they’re back at the apartment examining their goods. She’s practically beaming at the amount of canned goods and guns and ration cards scattered over the coffee table; picks up a gun as she settles on the couch to examine it up close.

He’s more intrigued with the food and liquor they have - it’s not very often that they get good liquor, less than they get decent meals. Already he’s had to pull his belt in tighter by two notches, and Tess’ joints jab twice as brutal as they did before.

A decent meal will do her good.

“Quit messin’ around with that thing and come eat somethin’,” he tells her, where he’s grabbing their busted up little pot and filling it with water to heat up a can or two of beef hash he’s grabbed from the pile of canned goods. Tess likes her guns and he likes his food; as hard as it is to come by. They’ve gone days, weeks on minimal sustenance, and their bodies keep the scars from just barely fighting back.

Joel keeps memories of not being able to protect them both.

So he eats, and he makes her eat too, because that’s something Tess forgets to do.

Sometimes he thinks she’ll forget to breathe if he doesn’t reminder her to do it too.

He props the pot onto their hot plate, watches the water bubble and pops the cans into the water long enough to heat the food inside; watches as Tess comes to him with something resembling a contented smirk on her face. He watches, silent as always when she hops up onto the counter beside him, feels the swaying of her dangling feet in the space beside his hips and then the weight of her body leaning against his shoulder to watch too.

The scent of her comes to him against his will; soft and strangely feminine underneath the sweat and dust. It’s something strangely sweet and bitter on his tongue - something wholly Tess that he’s always had trouble getting out of his senses. To think of ways to define it would confuse him more, but maybe it’s something with the soap she uses or the way sweat dries on her skin?

Is it something in her pores; something so intoxicating to him in the most dangerous of ways whenever she presses too close, when he has her up against the wall of the apartment or pinned beneath him on the couch? When she’s gasping and swearing and trembling around him - it’s no one’s fault but his own.

The water scalds him just a touch; Tess makes a quiet little outcry when Joel jumps and hisses at the stinging on his hand, and takes his hand in hers before he can pull away. “You gotta watch yourself, old man,” she clicks her tongue at him, and Joel thinks his cheeks are burning when he pulls his hand away and instead uses their old dishrag to get the hot cans out of the water.

“Just let my mind slip away for a little bit, is all,” he murmurs, when Tess proffers the old rusty can opener at him. He curls his mouth into a thin frown as he takes it from her, glancing only for a moment into her face; into the half of a smile on her face that he doesn’t see nearly enough.

She’s so fucking happy about this payoff, so he gives her a smile back too just because.

There’s no point being a downer over nothing.

They sit and they eat, and for once he sees Tess dig into her food with a gusto. She’s a picky eater; ironic and something stupid to be when food is so scarce already, but he doesn’t think to rag at her for it tonight. Instead he sits with her on their battered old couch, stained in blood and sweat and other things - lets Tess dominate most of the cramped space as she sprawls her long legs out over his lap almost onto his chest.

He’s not hungry.

It’s a little disappointedly when he shoves his spoon around in his half-eaten beef hash; his stomach churns and cramps and he doesn’t know if it’s from the food or not. It’s not like him to waste food, but Joel can’t think of eating tonight - not with Tess humming somewhat off-key under her breath beside him, against him. The noisy sound of her spoon scraping the sides of the can to get at everything she can, the way she licks the corner of her mouth to get at the grease.

She glances at him eventually, sharp eyes narrowing in the corners in confusion at the look on his face and the half-eaten meal. She puts her own can down, touches the leg closest to her side; he feels her fingers through his jeans and it shakes him.

He doesn’t know why.

“You okay, old man?” she asks him quietly, tilting her head; her mouth pulls into something like a smile, thin as it is. It’s still a smile and it’s still something strange in her touch and words and look as she stares at him and suddenly he just wants to put his head between his knees and throw up.

_It’s just another need they fulfill._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> want and need are two different things

_ “That was a stupid mistake and you fuckin’ know it, Tess!” _

They barge into the apartment, Tess fuming as she marches through the door; Joel bristling after her. They’re covered in bumps and bruises, sweat stinging into the scrapes that bleed, and it’s fuel to the fire as Tess flings her backpack violently to the ground.

The apartment floor is flooded with pill bottles, some pills scatter out onto the ground, and Joel barely holds in the snarl in his throat when Tess stomps over a mass of them - reaching for the whiskey. His eyes blaze at her, he tosses his own pack aside.

This fight isn’t over just because she’s thrown a tantrum.

“I got us out alive with the pills, didn’t I?” Tess snaps at him, and swigs straight from the bottle; wipes messily at the alcohol spilling around her lips. “I don’t need a lecture from you for saving your stupid ass again -.”

“ _ My  _ ass?!” Joel explodes, pills crunching under his boots then when he marches over to the woman. His voice is loud in the apartment, sharp and low and thunderous as he swells with rage at the belligerent brunette glaring steadily into his face. “Did it look like it was  _ my  _ ass nearly gettin’ mauled to death by those goddamn runners? Huh? Was it  _ my  _ ass that almost got its head blown off by those goddamn Hunters?”

She slams the bottle against the counter; the force nearly jars the whole counter as her eyes blaze black and wide at him. “ _ I  _ wasn’t the one acting as if you were a fucking  _ porcelain _ doll!” she thunders back, and Joel reels back only briefly when she rounds the counter and shoves at his chest viciously.

“You don’t fucking trust me enough to get the goddamn job done, that’s what’s wrong with this.” She shoves him again, harder, and Joel staggers against the couch before he snatches her hand in his. “I was doing this long before I met your stupid country ass; I can handle myself just fine without you treating me like a goddamn damsel in distress!”

“You were nearly  _ raped  _ the night we met!” he spits back, and does something he hadn’t known he had the will to - he shoves her right back, harder than he anticipates. But there isn’t a filter to reach back for, to rein it with; his blood boils in his veins and throbs like fire in his forehead almost dizzying as he comes upon her like a snarling bear. 

Joel grabs at her arms, gripping to bruise even as Tess gasps under her breath and fights his hold to no avail. “We’ve been partners for five years already, damn it - ain’t you learned nothin’ from all we been through?” He shakes her; nothing brutal, just hard enough to rattle the woman, and Tess hisses at him viciously, wrenching his grip from her body.

“I learned that I made a mistake letting you be my partner!” she snaps spitefully, and even as she’s stumbling away from him - he sees the way her eyes go wide and fill with regret. Regret for words she’s said. It’s too late now, it’s too late to take it back, and Tess will never take her words back. Instead she swallows, thick and hot with the bile in her throat, and stares at him defiantly. 

He feels his heart sting, but he curls his mouth into a scowl and glares right back at her coldly. “Yeah well, even a bitch like you didn’t deserve what they were gonna do to you.”

The air in the room dissipates; neither of them can breathe - can process the words he’s just spat at her like venom. He regrets it as soon as he gets it out and she sees it on his face, but unlike her; he’s already fumbling for an apology. “Now wait, I didn’t -.”

“Yeah, fuck you too, Joel,” she says, and for the life of her she’ll hate the way her voice quivers and breaks and her eyes fill with so much hurt it burns her throat.  

He reaches out for her again, gentler, desperate, but Tess recoils from him like he’s thrown acid in her face, and he feels his heart sink into his stomach. “Tess -.”

She locks herself into the bedroom.

He sits outside by the door and drinks through their stash of alcohol until he can’t see straight.

Until he can take those words back again.


End file.
